⁴ For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.

The first place, interestingly, for living out the sacrificial, transformational, sober mindset is in the area of body life among Christians. While the people of Israel had a rich history of functioning together as a community, the new Christian movement brought together people from wide and diverse backgrounds. Within churches were often found people of affluence and people of meager circumstances. That remains true today, where you have bankers, doctors, factory workers, waiters and unemployed job seekers, alongside people of various races, ages and family relationships—people from all walks of life fellowshipping together in a local church. The main thing we have in common is that we are all justified by grace through faith. We are saved. But how do we all worship and live together when we are so different?

A new social order is needed, and our passage begins with understanding the place each of us holds in the body. Paul describes Christian fellowship as a body with members, or various parts that make up the body. Interestingly, when the world speaks of “membership” in an organization or fraternity, they borrow from this biblical concept of a body with members. As Christians we must always remember there is one body. While this speaks of all Christians everywhere, what some call the universal body of Christ, it finds its practical working out in the local gathering of believers, what we call the local church. The focus is on the unity. The worldly mindset focuses on individuality, with the attitude, “What’s in it for me?” whereas the transformed Christian mind has the attitude, “I’m in it for the benefit of other Christians.”

The body metaphor carries many points of illustration. Sober thinking recognizes that just like a physical body has many parts that function differently, so the church will have many parts that play different roles. Also, because we are all part of the same spiritual body (the body of Christ), we are inexorably connected with each other. This is not our choice; God saved us into the reality of inclusion into the body of Christ. We are all tied together.

Common today is so-called “church hopping,” where people jump from church to church when the fellowship becomes difficult. That’s like a hand that refuses to turn the wheel on a wheelchair because it doesn’t want the work of being associated with a crippled body. It would rather hang out with a body that pampers itself with manicures and tanning spray.

Lord, help me not be a self-centered Christian who sees only my own needs.